Children that have trouble with changing situations, paying attention, and staying on tasks (‘executive functions’), generally remain behind with academic skills such as reading, math, and social skills. But executive functions can be ameliorated, resulting in higher benefits from education.

Ample evidence has shown that subjective measures of executive control in kindergarten strongly contribute to the emergence of reading. In the present study, we examined this relation more thoroughly, by considering contributions of objective direct self-measures of both attentional control and behavioral control to the developmental trajectory from phonological awareness in kindergarten to subsequent decoding in first grade. Results show that executive control allows the development of reading abilities that predate formal reading instruction via the advancements in phonological awareness.